1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to electronic circuits, and in particular, to electronic noise suppression circuits.
2. Description of Related Art
As engineers seek ever increasing speeds in VLSI chips, complex problems continue to rise to the forefront. For example, as process feature sizes continue to shrink, metallurgical limitations are continually raising line-to-line interconnect coupling effects, leading to increased concern over signal noise and noise tolerances. Design engineers continually fight and solve problems relating to signal noise.
Signal noise can take several forms. Due to coupling effects, signals can bounce in one or more of four distinct directions: above ground, below the supply, below ground, and above the supply. Above-ground signal noise and below-supply signal noise can cause false switching events if the coupling effects cause a signal to cross the switching threshold of a given destination circuit. Below-ground signal noise and above-supply signal noise can cause loss of state in some types of latch circuits.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide an active circuit that can reduce noise effects, such as those produced by line-to-line interconnect coupling, and it would be particularly advantageous to provide an active circuit to reduce above-supply signal noise and below-ground signal noise.